


Freedom in All Things

by MockerDelight



Category: RWBY
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Oneshots and scraps, Violence, self-hate, sibling codependency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29974848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MockerDelight/pseuds/MockerDelight
Summary: Broken people grow and change, but it doesn't make it so they were never broken. Team STRQ never did run smooth, but they were family while it lasted. This is what Taiyang held close all those years later, even if he was the most against it in the beginning.Tales from the perspective of Tai as he hates, burns, and learns to love in the years from childhood to the early graduation of his youngest daughter.
Relationships: Hints of Qrow Branwen/Summer Rose, Hints of Raven Branwen/Summer Rose, Raven Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long, Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long





	Freedom in All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this needed to be written and I can't guarantee regular updates since its just ideas floating in the ether. Because I like the thought of Team STRQ having a complicated as fuck history and also the thought that Taiyang wasn't so happy-go-lucky in his youth. In fact the thought that he was a hellraiser with all of Yang's temper and none of the even keel she gained from Taiyang's guidance is absolutely delightful. Also morally grey Ozma is something I live for and the concept that there can sometimes be significant gaps between his incarnations is such a juicy thought I couldn't give it up.

Qrow Branwen never lies; this is the truth.

Raven Branwen lies to everyone, even herself.

Summer is honest in her joy and deceitful with her burdens.

They all fly away on wings made of magic and conviction; but only one of them always comes back.

Taiyang has always been flightless, grounded—covered in muck and dirt and forever unwanted; but that’s all right because he knows he’s always been too broken to love.

He is an angry thing made of fire and careless spite—the magma of his hate has always bubbled in his lungs and it will never sputter out.

Taiyang knows this better than anyone.

.

.

.

Taiyang met Qrow and Raven during the entry test to Beacon. The sun had been bright, blinding and it made the bruise around his eye ache. He remembered most the fluttering in his chest as they announced the task and the rush of wind through his hair. After that was a bit of a blur before he spotted the white of someone’s cloak through the trees and tried to leave without being seen.

Her smile had been blinding when she caught sight of him and his bloody knuckles. It had made his scalp prickle with wariness and an instinctive, bubbling aggression before he’d swallowed the bile and agreed to follow her.

Her name was Summer and her voice was low and whispery until it cracked through the air like an errant lightning strike: sudden and bright.

He would end up letting her lead him into a lot of things after that, for years and years, desperate for the look that had inspired such acidic resentment the first time he saw it; but that was later, this was now.

“So—where’s your weapon?”

Taiyang slapped Grimm ash from the edge of his ragged shorts, breathing in the satisfaction of vibrating bones that accompanied the last hit against an Ursa’s skull.

“Don’t have one,” he grunted.

Summer’s eyes widened, the grey reflecting even under her hood and flaring like polished coins under the swaying light that trickled between the trees.

“Woah—really? You just go bare knuckle?”

Taiyang brushed past her, ignoring her little wobble and the snap of her cape as she rushed to catch up to his longer strides.

“Yes.”

Summer rushed ahead with a careless swagger in her step, turning to face him with a grin as she walked. Taiyang wanted to snarl at her for her carelessness, but his mother had always told him you couldn’t cure stupid. Idiots were better off dead anyways if they couldn’t pay attention to their surroundings.

The hollow of his eye ached sharply at that thought.

“That’s so badass! But what do you do when you run into something more armored?”

Taiyang raised one of his eyebrows and pushed past her through a break in the trees, ignoring her indignant squawk.

He saw the boy first, all elbows and sharp angles as he perched over the unconscious form of one of their classmates. His eyes glittered like polished stone when he looked up: catching sight of Taiyang and rolling his joints into a more ready position. The girl barely acknowledged them with a glance before going back to fishing through the pockets of another person’s coat. She came up with a chess piece, a black horse.

“Hey,” Summer shouted, scandalized, “what the heck are you doing?”

The girl ignored her.

“I like this one.”

She tossed it to her brother, who caught it and inspected the thing like it was some kind of antique. Taiyang didn’t know their names, but he knew they were siblings without having to ask. The identical coloring gave it away, along with the shared sharpness of their cheekbones and droop at the edge of their eyes.

Summer’s own eyes glittered dangerously as she marched closer. Taiyang sighed and opted to search through the pockets of a different classmate. Best to avoid whatever explosion his current teammate was about to set off.

Besides, yellow really clashed with his hair and there were no more black pieces on the pedestals.

“I’m talking to you y’know!”

The girl sent a droll look Summer’s way.

“And I was ignoring you—what do you want pipsqueak?”

The dark haired girl puffed out her chest, staring down her nose at Summer. The smaller girl made an indignant noise.

“My _name_ is Summer—and I’m not that much shorter than you!”

The girl seemed to have forgotten her reason for upset after the cheap shot at her height. She stood up on her toes but only ended up somewhere beneath the other teenager’s chin. The heel of one of her boots knocked into a fallen classmate’s arm.

Taiyang rolled his eyes before clicking his tongue in interest. He pulled a black horse piece from one of the ammo bags near two now groaning bodies.

The red-eyed boy lifted his eyebrows and held up his own piece; Taiyang nodded back.

“— and you can’t just steal another student’s stuff—,” Summer continued to lecture. The taller girl’s nose was wrinkled with disdain and her brother had migrated to perching on one of the empty pedestals. Taiyang briefly contemplated walking away.

“Look,” the other girl interrupted, “I’m not interested in hearing some shortcake blow hot air, they’re about to wake up.”

She pointed to the stirring bodies. Her gaze flickered to Taiyang and a smirk graced her lips.

“It’s not like you or your teammate are innocent either.”

Summer whipped around with a look of betrayal.

“Tai!”

Taiyang’s lip curled at the casual shortening of his name.

“Don’t call me that.”

Summer huffed.

“We—,”

“Hey!”

A pair of girls emerged from the trees at the edge of the clearing and unlike Summer, they weren’t interested in talking it out over some unconscious bodies. Summer yelped and ducked in a smooth flowing movement, seeming to fly through the air as she took cover from the hail of bullets and arrow bolts.

The taller girl and her brother took cover with them, the other girl’s shoulders shaking with amusement. Summer’s ears went red and she began to complain at the laughing girl, only making her laugh harder.

“This isn’t funny!”

Tai leaned his head back against his pedestal and wondered why he’d decided to take this stupid test in the first place.

His bicep twitched when a feathery touch fluttered against his collarbone and he jerked in the direction it came from. The lanky boy caught his eye after a wary glance at his fists and pulled a few throwing knives from his wrist braces.

He knocked a knuckle against one of the pedestals and jerked his chin in the direction of the gunfire.

Taiyang caught on quickly and widened his crouch slightly, nodding in confirmation and leaning his shoulder lightly against the stone.

The girls shooting at them were foolish, not bothering to stagger their shots. They both stopped at the same time to reload and Taiyang lifted the pedestal with one surge and threw it at them.

They leapt out of the way. One rolled into a crouch only to yelp when a knife made contact with her eye. Her aura protected her, but the energy guard around the eyes was notoriously thin so it caused her to flinch, _hard._ Two knives that would have pinned her to the tree trunk behind her by her sleeves missed, but the three sent at her partner pinned her crossbow and sleeves and caught her right in the forehead.

In a blur of movement the girl from earlier was across the clearing and slamming the hilt of her sword into the brachial nerve of the stunned girl. Her aura was already thin from the shock of the close call with her eye, so she dropped immediately with a choked sound. Crossbow Girl ripped her sleeves and activated a mechanism to shift her automatic crossbow into a rail gun. The sudden expansion of the barrel gave her enough leverage to push away from the tree and avoid the red-eyed girl’s follow-up, but she didn’t have the time to turn on her assaulter as a tonfa slammed into the side of her neck.

Summer put a hand on her hip and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes as she twirled her weapon.

“You didn’t have to shoot at us y’know,” she said to their unconscious audience.

The boy snorted quietly from where he was yanking his knives from the bark of the tree. The tall girl voiced whatever that brief sound was supposed to mean with her own mocking rejoinder.

“Did you even count the pieces on the pedestals Shortcake?”

Summer crossed her arms defensively.

“No, why?”

The girl shook her head in exasperation and picked a knife up off the ground, tossing it to her brother. He caught the piece between his fingers, flipping it into its holster as his eyes scanned the bushes for his lost weaponry.

“One chess set has 32 pieces, the same amount of pedestals over there. There were 100 students in this year’s first exam. We haven’t even been assigned our housing.”

The girl walked forward and poked a finger into Summer’s shoulder. The shorter girl stared at her feet with her brow furrowed.

“Do the math.”

Summer bit her lip.

“But—we all passed the entrance exam.”

The boy finally spoke, his voice a dry rasp.

“Anyone can pass with a high enough Aura score and the right papers—it's smart of them to parse us down at the beginning.”

Summer frowned at her boots, grinding a heel down as she chewed on that particular bit of information. Taiyang, briefly, wanted to comfort her. It was a faint thought, something he squashed with immediate and brutal efficiency, horrified that it even popped up at all.

The girl shook off her brooding near immediately.

“No use crying about it,” she sighed, “let’s go Tai—,” Taiyang glared at her, “—Taiyang.”

Better to nip that kind of nonsense at the bud.

The girl turned to walk away, her brother following. Taiyang was a bit relieved they wouldn’t have to fight the pair.

That was when a pack of Ursa emerged from the trees.

In a flurry of ash and roars Raven and Qrow let their names slip—that was their true introduction to Taiyang. It became a bit of a theme for their lives after that, how chaos and violence seemed to nip at their heels without tiring.

It was fun for a while—if only because it was something Taiyang knew, something he was familiar with.

Something he was born from and into, without even the knowledge that light might be on the horizon.

.

.

.

Qrow flopped on the bed nearest the wall the moment he arrived in their shared dorm. His brows were drawn in a sour scowl and the rattle of his landing knocked a paperweight off Raven’s newly decorated desk. Taiyang watched with amusement as the thing damn near skipped an impossible foot over just to fall.

“I can’t believe this,” he complained to the room at large as Raven scowled and picked up the Grimm figurine on the floor. She nudged the door shut behind her.

Summer looked up from her sewing and blinked owlishly, coming out from whatever haze she’d been in for the last few hours.

“Believe what?”

“Professor Eleste,” Raven drawled as Qrow screamed into his pillow, his skirt rucking up around his thighs as he threw his legs down like a child in a tantrum. Taiyang rolled his eyes.

“The test again?” he sighed, irritation sweeping down his spine.

Qrow snapped up, eyes stark and glaring.

“Yes, that fucking test! We nearly failed out of this Unit because of these stupid grading rules—how can she grade all of us _together?_ ”

Taiyang turned away from Qrow’s irate stare. It was rare for the other boy to be this expressive, but something about Eleste made him flush with some kind of passion. It made sweat gather on Taiyang’s neck, the thought of Qrow ever catching the interest of their young professor.

Those cold hazel eyes gleamed in his memory, cooling the rage in his chest into something fearful and small. Qrow was much too perceptive when calm. He’d notice Eleste’s suspicious nature if he bothered to look more closely.

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

Taiyang caught the pillow Qrow flung at his head without looking up from his book on Aural Psychology.

“You should care, I can’t have you two dragging us down!”

Raven deliberately didn’t react to that, her eyes suddenly trained on the window.

“The fuck did you just say?”

He raised a hand to warn off Summer when she foolishly tried to put her hand on his shoulder.

Qrow’s eyelids dropped into a condescending glare.

“I said,” he drawled deliberately, “I can’t have you _two_ getting Raven and me kicked out of Beacon for failing grades.”

Summer huffed, a flush rising in her cheeks.

“I just wasn’t ready for the test,” she ducked her head and muttered.

Taiyang slammed his hand into his desk, cracking the wood and making a duct taped corner fall off with a pathetic rip.

“If anything it's you two that are dragging _us_ down!”

Qrow was practically spitting fire as he stood up.

“Don’t try and turn this around so you don’t—,” he flinched when a packet of paper hit him in his face. Taiyang breathed and tried not to leap across the room and punch Qrow’s teeth right out of his jaw. His knuckles cracked.

“Those are my graded papers you _ass—_ a perfect gods damned score.”

Qrow’s brows furrowed.

“But the percentage—that would mean—,”

He looked to Raven who tilted her chin up and avoided his gaze.

“Raven?”

Summer finally set aside the skirt she was beading.

“Oh my goodness, did you fail the test Raven?”

The tall girl’s face flushed red.

“So what?” she spat, “It was only one test and I had other things to do.”

Qrow bristled.

“ _Only_ one test? Raven we’re here for a reason!”

Her arms crossed defensively.

“Yeah, but we’re not learning anything _useful!_ When am I going to have to calculate energy ratios of Dust cartridges to Aural strain? We’re going to be _fighting,_ not filling out grid paper.”

Summer stood up.

“Both of you need to calm down, I’m sure we just need to study together more.”

Raven took a threatening step forward to loom over Summer and Taiyang felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Don’t look down on me, your grade was just as bad!”

Summer scowled and put her hands on her hips.

“I’m not looking down on anyone, all I’m trying to say is that we should—,”

Taiyang leaned his face into his hands and covered his ears, fingers tugging on his hair as he blocked out the sound of their arguing.

Qrow joined in a moment later and Raven grew even more strident as he fell on Summer’s side of the argument. 

A sharp series of raps resounded through the room as someone knocked on their door.

Taiyang practically leapt out of his seat to answer the guest; anything to get away from the rising tensions.

He nearly slammed the door shut again when he looked down to catch the coldly smiling eyes of Professor Eleste. The woman folded her hands in her lap and ran her gaze over the tableau they made. Taiyang stomped on his instinct to step into the door and close it more to shield the rest of his team.

“Mr. Xiao Long, just the man I wanted to see.”

Why hadn’t she left a message through the dropbox? She’d _told_ him that was the only way they could communicate.

“Yes Professor Eleste?”

He felt the heat of Qrow leaning over his shoulder, scenting musk and campfire. He resisted the urge to elbow the other boy; it wasn’t like he was touching him. Wasn’t like Qrow touched anyone if he could help it.

The professor smiled at the Branwen looming in the doorway and gestured to the hall.

“I have something I wish to discuss with you, please walk with me.”

Taiyang barely avoided making a pithy comment about her rolling along while Qrow hissed in his ear.

“Ask her about the _assignment_ ,” before he kicked the back of Taiyang’s boot and practically slammed the door on him.

Professor Eleste raised an eyebrow at the behavior, an amused tilt to her lips.

“If you could take us to the quad Mr. Xiao Long.”

Taiyang took the handles of the professor’s chair and started pushing them towards the elevator. He could see the tenseness in her shoulders—tight with pain. He frowned and opened his mouth to speak.

“Not until we are in a more public venue, please.”

Taiyang closed his mouth. They silently made their way towards the quad; the rattling elevator was their only accompaniment.

When they made it to the nearly empty space Taiyang turned his head to catch the last rays of the evening sun. Around them the lamps began to switch on, filling the air with the faint buzz of trapped electricity.

Taiyang walked them over to a bench and sat after positioning the professor’s chair beside the stone structure.

“Thank you Mr. Xiao Long.”

He frowned.

“What do you want, professor? You said it was too dangerous to talk like this.”

Eleste stared at the broken moon, waning to fully shattered pieces above them.

“I’m dying Mr. Xiao Long.”

Tai’s throat dropped into his stomach.

“ _What,”_ it came out cracked and dripping with magma.

_How dare she?_

“You _promised—,”_

“Let me _finish.”_

Wrath rolled through his bones like an ongoing eruption, but his jaw clicked shut regardless. Those cold eyes stared at him from behind her glasses.

Eleste sighed and turned back to the sky.

“I am running out of time, and I _need_ this finished before I die.”

A prickling awareness iced down Taiyang’s spine.

“If you die,” he rasped, “how will I pay for this? How will I _graduate?”_

His arm swung to encompass the campus around them. The best Hunt’s Academy in Vale; Beacon, where you make connections that can carry you through the rest of your life. It was one of the deepest beds of Vale’s political corruption other than the Parliament. His only chance at becoming _something,_ becoming bigger than the hand life dealt him on a nowhere island called Patch and a hateful mother full of spite. Eleste and him had made a _deal._

The woman frowned and turned to him. He wanted to rage at the _pity_ he saw in those eyes. She didn’t get to be woeful, not _now,_ not _ever,_ not after everything he did for her, for this chance at freedom _._ His knuckles cracked, curled into fists before he forced them to relax.

“You will still be taken care of Mr. Xiao Long, even after my death,” Eleste assured him softly, “but what I need you to understand is that my situation makes my timeline speed up considerably.” Her head bowed. “I need you now more than ever and I am sorry for it.”

Taiyang’s breath nearly left him in pure relief, but he held back.

“What does that mean?”

Eleste turned back to the light of the moon, eyes tense with pain.

“You will be my teaching assistant for the rest of this year,” she reached behind her to grab a file from the bag hanging from her chair, “and I need you to take care of this, tonight.”

Taiyang took the papers, reading through the file. 

Ember Fallow: Heir to the Vale based Dust conglomerate Fallow Treasure LLC, and the grandson of Malachite Fallow; Senator of the leftist party in the current Parliament structure. The Fallows’ money was one of the biggest backers behind getting a seat in the Parliament. Even the president of Vale had to reach into their pockets.

Taiyang grimaced.

“This is way too high priority. How the hell am I supposed to get close to someone like this?”

Eleste’s lips pulled into a deeper scowl.

“Read the rest, then I’ll answer your questions.”

Taiyang let out a frustrated breath and turned back to the file, flipping through the rest of the pages.

Fallow’s favorite club, a thinly veiled prostitution ring called Shatter, was a couple of bus stops away from the Beacon campus town. He would be there tonight, as was his habit according to the file. He would have a skeleton of security, specifically because Shatter catered to “divergent” tastes. The kind that his grandfather wouldn’t approve of, considering how old fashioned he was.

His favorites were young, blonde Faunus men.

“Please tell me you don’t want me to disguise myself as a Faunus prostitute.”

Eleste let out an amused breath.

“No, Mr. Xiao Long. Shatter’s books are too thorough to sneak you in like that. I have an acquaintance that helps manage the kitchen for the private rooms. Tonight, he will leave the employee entrance propped open for you at exactly 11pm for five minutes. Fallow’s usual room is marked on that map, you should be able to make your way through the marked route in a server’s guise.”

Taiyang flipped to said map and burned it into his retinas.

“You usually give me more time than this.”

Eleste’s lips twisted with frustration.

“As I said, my timeline has moved up and Fallow is slated for a tour to Atlas in the next month that can last a year—I will be dead long before he returns, so I need this done now.”

Taiyang's heart lurched, like it always did when he decided to do these little missions. He wanted to laugh: a _decision,_ sure. The throb of his pulse steadied as he absorbed the information.

“I’ll go get dressed.” He said after checking his watch. Four hours to the deadline.

His entire spine locked when a small hand grasped his wrist.

“Be careful Mr. Xiao Long,” thin fingers squeezed weakly, deceptive in their delicacy, “these next few months will be hard—and I would hate to have to explain everything to your team.”

Taiyang handed back the file after he was sure he’d memorized what he needed.

There was more than one warning there. Don’t get killed and don’t get caught by your team or anyone else. Taiyang looked into those hazel eyes, cold and depthless, and nodded. His voice was frozen in his throat again; the hate for his own weakness was swirling in his chest. It’s taken him barely two months to get attached to the annoyances he was saddled with.

Some Huntsman he was.

More leverage for Eleste and another link in the chain binding him to dead weight.

He was thinking over the guard profiles he’d seen as he unlocked the door to his dorm.

Qrow looked up from where he was leaning over Summer’s shoulder as she drooped despairingly over her Aural Calculations book. Raven was working through a problem set on her bed in her pajamas. Qrow’s eyes glittered, lighting with interest.

“What’d the professor say?”

Taiyang barely heard him as he pulled his shirt off to change into his black sweats.

“What?”

Raven made an impatient noise.

“Professor Eleste? About our grade?”

Taiyang zipped up his top.

“I’m her new teaching assistant—she’s not changing the grade.”

Summer brightened.

“Congratulations Taiyang!”

Qrow scowled and grumbled.

Raven rolled her eyes at his pout and looked to Taiyang.

“Where are you going?”

Taiyang paused at the door; the brass knob seemed small and foreign in his calloused hands.

“I’m running some errands, I’ll be back later tonight.”

Summer made a face but stayed quiet. She was an infamously light sleeper and never a morning person. There’d been more than a few arguments about relative noise levels between them all, mostly because she had a tendency to bring the window curtains to life to muffle all sound. It was alarming to be playing a video game and suddenly find yourself being slowly strangled by heavy blackout fabric.

Raven had threatened to destroy every piece of bedding in their dorm after she ended up losing a game of Mortal Hunts to Qrow because of Summer’s half-asleep assault.

Taiyang rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry princess,” he remarked, “I’ll be quiet when I get back.”

_I’ll even make sure to rinse off the blood before I get on the bus._

The streetlights only make the darkness all the more consuming as he walks out of the dorms.

Truly, the best kind of night to commit a murder.

Taiyang huffs, morbid amusement rooting itself in his lungs as he pulls his hood over his head.


End file.
